Idaho legislators should quit being the food police | Opinion

Idaho legislators last year passed a bill banning the use of money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to buy candy or soda.

Sounds simple, right?

It turns out it’s not so simple, after all.

As the Idaho Statesman’s Angela Palermo reported, the new rules, which went into effect Feb. 1, are creating confusion among customers and grocery stores over what’s candy and what’s not.

The law defines candy as a “preparation of sugar, honey or other natural or artificial sweeteners combined with chocolate, fruits, nuts or other ingredients or flavorings in the form of confections, bars, drops or pieces.” The restrictions don’t include items that need to be refrigerated or contain over 10% flour by weight.

So that means things like Twix bars, Oreos, Twizzlers and Hostess Donettes are OK, but a Hershey’s standard milk chocolate bar isn’t.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare says any sweetened bar, drop or piece with flour, including any amount of wheat, rice, oat and almond flour, is eligible to charge to a customer’s SNAP card. But the government doesn’t provide a list of what products are no longer eligible, leaving grocery operators to figure it out, according to the Statesman story.

One grocer said he contacted the state multiple times to get clarity on what’s included in the law and did not receive any guidance.

It shouldn’t be left to the grocery store to figure out for themselves; it’s up to the state to create laws that are clear and understandable.

Barring that, it’s a bad law and should be repealed.

We get it: Lawmakers want to make sure SNAP recipients aren’t spending taxpayer money on foods that are not healthy.

But this kind of food policing has proven to be onerous and ridiculous.

God forbid that a SNAP recipient buys all healthy food, such as produce, meats, cheese and milk, but wants to buy a candy bar as they pass through the checkout counter. Or if a mom wants to buy a bottle of ginger ale for her sick daughter.

The juice isn’t worth the squeeze to try to stop her.

Speaking of juice, the law identified soda as any nonalcoholic beverage that contains natural or artificial sweeteners, but drinks that contain more than 50% fruit or vegetable juice by volume are not considered soda.

Not so simple.

We also find it rich that state legislators for years have failed to repeal the sales tax on groceries, using the excuse that they can’t define groceries, but demand that grocery stores parse out candy and soda in the name of being the food police for poor people. So we wound up with all of the foretold regulatory hassle, but we still have to pay taxes on groceries.

A House committee voted to recommend a bill that would clarify what constitutes candy and soda for the purposes of the state’s food-assistance program.

“As the department began implementing the program … it became clear that the existing statutory definitions of ‘candy’ and ‘soda’ were difficult for retailers and consumers to interpret and could lead to inconsistent application,” read the legislation’s statement of purpose.

The bill adds more language and more confusing categories.

Rather than add even more confusion, legislators would be better off just killing the ban altogether.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, assistant editor Jim Keyser and community members John Hess, Debbie McCormick and Julie Yamamoto.